Compare And Contrast How I Learned To Drive And Electricidad

At the early age of nine months, a baby girl most commonly busts out her first word in two syllables: “Da-Da.” Dad. Within her first year of living, her life revolves around her father. Such is the case for Li’l Bit and Electricidad from Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive and Luis Alfaro’s Electricidad, respectively. Stuck in suburban Maryland without ever meeting her biological father, the pubescent Li’l Bit fills the void by developing an emotionally-dependent and sexual relationship with her charming Uncle Peck. In contrast, Electricidad has grown up with her father throughout her life into adulthood, but she feels this bond stripped away and seeks vengeance when her mother Clemencia murders him. Although Uncle Peck is not Li’l Bit’s biological

father, I argue that he manipulates her actions to the same degree as Electricidad’s father, effectively driving the plot of the play.
From the beginning, Li’l Bit consistently reveals through her diction that she sees Uncle Peck as a father figure, something she craves.

In the first scene of How I Learned to Drive, Li’l Bit introduces Peck as “a man old enough to be — did I mention how still the night is?” (9). Although Li’l Bit changes the subject before she can finish her sentence, the audience can infer that she means to say “a man old enough to be my dad.” Although some may argue that she plans to say something else, comparing Uncle Peck, a man whom she has sexual relations with, to her own father is exactly the disturbing thought that compels her to change the subject to something as trivial as “how still the night is.” As the first characteristic that materializes in her mind, Li’l Bit acknowledges that her Uncle Peck’s old age reminds her of her father, which gives her justification to replace her real father with Uncle Peck. Li’l Bit confirms this in “You and Reverse Gear,” where at the age of eleven she convinces her mother to let her have driving lessons with Uncle Peck. While she indirectly states that developing a bond with Uncle Peck would give her “a chance at having a father,” she evokes a tone of longing when she fervently exclaims, “Someone! A man who will look out for me!” Wishing to persuade her mom further, she even employs rhetoric by asking “Don’t I get a chance?” (55). Both her exclamations and use of a rhetorical question indicate how desperately she desires to have a father. This

determination is what ultimately forces Li’l Bit to enter a sexual relationship with Uncle Peck as the only method in which she can obtain and maintain a father.
Moreover, Uncle Peck uses paternal language when he speaks to Li’l Bit, willingly stepping into his role as a father figure. Like a dad, Uncle Peck calls Li’l Bit pet names such as “gal” (10), “missy” (17), and “honey” (43). By using these affectionate terms, he patronizes her and treats her like his child. This is especially understandable, seeing as Uncle Peck has watched Li’l Bit grow up since the day of her birth. At the family table, Uncle Peck outstretches his hand and says, “I held you, one day old, right in this hand” (12-13). His words remind the audience of a father reminiscing the day his daughter was born to his child. He remembers the day so fondly that he can point out the exact hand in which he held her in. In place of Li’l Bit’s actual father, Uncle Peck is the man who held her freshly-born body in his hand. In this way, Uncle Peck acts as a substitute for Li’l Bit’s real father, who is not present in her life. To fulfill this role, Uncle Peck offers to teach her how to drive. He asks Li’l Bit if her “father ever let [her] drive his car,” and when she says “no way” he asks, “Want to try?” (56). Usually, it is either the mother or father’s duty to teach their child how to drive a car. Uncle Peck volunteers himself to do for Li’l Bit what her father never did for her. Later during a different driving lesson, he reveals that Li’l Bit is “the nearest to a son [he will] ever have,” meaning that he consciously comprehends that Li’l Bit is like his child. By giving her driving and life lessons, Uncle Peck compensates for the fact that he has no children, similar to how Li’l Bit uses Uncle Peck as a replacement for her non-present father. Despite his at times romantic and sexual relationship, Uncle Peck embraces his role as Li’l Bit’s surrogate father, which only gives his words more leverage in Li’l Bit’s mind.
Furthermore, Vogel structures the play as a memoir and frames each scene around driving lessons to further allude to Peck’s father figure status. As the memoir tracks Li’l Bit’s evolution into adulthood, the play equally follows Uncle Peck’s transformation as well. Over the course of the play, he stops recklessly drinking and falls hopelessly in love with her to the point that he proposes to her. Then, the play recounts his backward decline back into alcoholism until he drinks “himself to death” (54). Thusly, How I Learned to Drive is just as much an account of Uncle Peck’s life as it is an account of Li’l Bit’s life, their stories so intertwined, like a parent and his child. This memoir demonstrates just how significant Uncle Peck is to Li’l Bit. Her life revolves more around him than her actual father. At the same time, Vogel highlights Peck’s fatherly role as Li’l Bit’s driving teacher by beginning each scene with a new announcement from “the type of voice that driver education films employ” (6). In combination with the title of the play, How I Learned to Drive, Vogel instills the concept of driving lessons, which Uncle Peck contributes to Li’l Bit. Like a car, Peck guides Li’l Bit to her destination as her father figure.
In the same way that Li’l Bit’s life revolves around her Uncle Peck, Electricidad behaves equally obsessive over her father. Alfaro stages Agamenón’s “decomposing body” at the “center of the altar” on stage (66), and he introduces Electricidad to the audience with her sleeping “at [this] altar” (67). Based on La Carmen’s line that “she’s still there,” Electricidad has not left her father’s body at all since his passing, demonstrating her attachment to him. From beginning to end, Electricidad grieves her father’s death, depriving herself of a comfortable bed so as to stay by her father’s side. Furthermore, the setting states that no one has heard Electricidad speak “for days, [except for] her wailing, which has been heard throughout el barrio 24/7” (66). So distraught over her father’s death, she hysterically mourns him. Then, in the second scene, the first word the audience hears Electricidad speak is “Papa,” and she proceeds to talk to Agamenón as if he still lives. Although this behavior is not necessarily irrational from a spiritual and religious perspective, after all “Christianity is a necessary and intrinsic part of the cholo terms and culture into which Alfaro translates” (Powers 197), this first instance in which the audience listens to Electricidad defines her as the grieving daughter. There, she states her exact goal throughout the play, to “free [her] Papa from [his] death” (69). From then on, Electricidad relentlessly attempts to complete her mission, even when that means ordering her brother Orestes to kill their own mother as revenge. Throughout the play, Agamenón and his death motivate all of Electricidad’s words and actions. Electricidad’s father dominates her every move without speaking a single word to or interacting with her on stage.
As Li’l Bit’s father figure, Uncle Peck uses this same power and employs manipulative language to persuade Li’l Bit into continuing their affair. For example, he “comforts” Li’l Bit by saying “nothing is going to happen between [them] until [she wants] it to” (23). He deceitfully pretends to give her power to dictate when they will have sex, yet he insinuates through the word “until” that she eventually concede to him. If she truly had control over their relationship, then she would have the option to never have sex with him, but he takes that option away from her by asserting that someday she will give in to her lust. Furthermore, Uncle Peck says “I love you [. . .] I have loved you every day since the day you were born” to Li’l Bit to convince her to keep posing for his pictures (43). While he speaks to her as her lover, his addition of “since the day you were born” gives him a paternal tone. Uncle Peck confirms that he loves Li’l Bit both as a lover and a father figure. As a girl without a father and Peck’s pseudo-daughter, Li’l Bit desires her Uncle Peck’s approval. Ultimately, she gives herself to him by unbuttoning her shirt, all to satisfy his own wants. Thusly, Uncle Peck takes advantage of his father figure status by pressuring Li’l Bit into performing sexual acts with him.
Finally, Vogel creates “negative empathy” towards Peck to cause both Li’l Bit and the audience to consider that their incestuous, forbidden relationship is possibly permissible.

As described in the book Paula Vogel by Joanna Mansbridge, negative empathy “works against conditioned moral responses by structuring an emotional connection to characters that, under normal circumstances, would be relatively categorized and dismissed” (7). Although society would normally mark and dismiss Uncle Peck as a pedophile, Vogel gives him a charming voice and demeanor that makes the audience question whether they should hate him. At the dinner table, he is the only family member to defend her, telling her grandpa to “let [his argument with her] go” and saying that he believes her college education will be “wonderful” (Vogel 14). In their family, Peck supports Li’l Bit as her only ally. He comforts her and seems to genuinely care for her. Furthermore, Li’l Bit does have some control in their relationship and abuses her power in a similar manner to him. Despite limiting his drinking in the past, on her eighteenth birthday she urges him to drink so that he does not “let a lady drink alone” (50). As a result, after she rejects his proposal, he spirals back into the alcoholism that she originally disrupted. The audience asks, “Is he an evil person, or does he just commit evil acts? Is he simply too weak to resist her?” If they decide he is not an evil person, then this lessens the gravity of his

incestuous acts, as if he has an excuse as a misled man. This parallels Li’l Bit’s own feelings towards her Uncle Peck, who develops an emotional connection with him both as her lover and father figure. Like a daughter, Li’l Bit unconditionally loves her Uncle Peck. Despite his emotional manipulation, she sees him as a person she can trust and mold into a better person, less vulnerable to alcohol. Li’l Bit cannot help but struggle and surrender to negative empathy and father-daughter unconditional love, continuing her affair with Uncle Peck for seven years.
Li’l Bit’s battle with her image of Uncle Peck is the heart of How I Learned to Drive. On one hand, he is a pedophile who manipulates her. On the other hand, he is the closest person she has to a father functions. In the same way that Electricidad wishes for her father to rise from the dead, Li’l Bit yearns for a father. Out of the same desperation as Electricidad, she even sacrifices her own innocence just to have one. Looking further into the two characters’ similarities, both are girls stuck in familial cultures that influence their minds and actions. Li’l Bit remains trapped in an excessively sexual, hick family, while Electricidad remains trapped in a violent, cholo gang and family. If they were to escape, they would equally escape their emotional burdens. Even so, it is possible that the girls’ fates were sealed the moment they spouted their first words. Was it “Da-Da?”